Paddling with platypus

 We had an early start this morning to meet the first tour of the morning at King Solomon’s Caves. You enter through a modest wooden porch and a metal door in the side of a hill, to discover a wonderland of limestone pillars, curtains and waves that extend about 300 meters into the hillside. The caves are only 5-20 meters below ground, so that in some places there are tree roots hanging from the ceiling that have been coated with calcite by the dripping water as it percolates through the limestone above. The calcite also leaves tiny crystalline fragments that sparkle in the light of a flashlight. Tasmania is one of the least seismic areas on earth, so that the stalactites have been uninterrupted by shaking in their 15 million years. So while the features only grow 2 cm in 100 years, some are very extensive. The whole experience felt much more intimate than visits to larger and more famous caverns in the US.

Much of the rest of the day was spent driving through the central plateau to our next lodging on the Derwent River. The Derwent River valley is important as the hatchery of trout fingerlings (from eggs brought from England), which in turn initiated trout populations in South Africa and South America. The valley is also important for growing truffles (Tasmania exports their truffles to Europe during the Northern Hemisphere winter), hazelnuts and hops. There are also vegetable farms, although most are to harvest the seeds rather than the edible vegetables themselves. Our accommodation is a “glamping tent” similar to those in Africa, with a large veranda overlooking the river. We’ve been advised to zip the flaps shut at night to keep possums and devils from wandering into our tent.

The Derwent River is also home to many platypus. Late in the afternoon we boarded kayaks for a 2 hour paddle downstream in search of these elusive monotremes. Platypus hunt for underwater invertebrates, mostly worms, by electromagnetic sensing with their bills. They do need to come to the surface to breathe, and this is the opportunity to see one. We were lucky that a platypus swam on the surface as we were preparing for to board our kayaks. The trip itself was lovely, with a warm sun and a light breeze, but we only saw one additional platypus, well below the leader’s average.  The warm sun was great for us, but caused the platypus to hide in shadows of the trees lining the riverbank.

We saw 6 pademelon on our way back from dinner and, on a night stroll, a Ring-tailed Possum (a new marsupial for us), a few mote pademelons, a 3 rabbits.

Pictured:  cave view, ring-tailed possum, our “tent”